


Long Haul

by Octinary



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Baby Witchers, First Meetings, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kids Having to Grow Up Too Quick, Trial Of The Grasses (The Witcher), discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29130996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Octinary/pseuds/Octinary
Summary: Now, as a mature adult, Geralt would have to admit that there are not that many good parts about being a witcher, but, if you don't get eaten by anything you're hunting, one thing it does give you is time.  Time to do things that would be impossible for a human, like tearing an entire castle down, brick by brick or scratching your way through an oaken door with nothing but your fingernails or getting Lambert to actually trust you.
Relationships: Eskel & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Lambert, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Vesemir
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54
Collections: The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge #014





	Long Haul

Eskel had not yet woken from his Trial of the Grasses when Geralt was taken in for his second round of mutations. The other boy was stable though, and the instructors said he was out of the woods, so as Geralt walked back down into the bowels of the ancient keep, he knew it was just a matter of time. Although, if his body accepted this next batch of mutagens as quickly as it had the first set, he might still be back upstairs before Eskel awoke. That had actually been his only argument, his one tiny rebellion when Vesemir came into the recovery room to fetch him: he didn’t want to not be there when Eskel and the others who had survived the Grasses woke up.

Geralt had been at Kaer Morhen longer than any of the other boys in his cohort, so he was frequently the first to have been shown or have experienced something and readily assumed the role of unofficial orienter. He loved his home and wanted his new brothers to love it too. As the boys had trickled in over the years, he had shown them where their bunks were, introduced them to the rhythm of the castle, explained which rules were hard and fast and which were really more of a guideline, warned them about which instructors to watch out for and which were known to be pushovers and shown them the best way to sneak into the pantry for sweets after lights out. He hadn’t thought it odd when he was the first up. It just made sense to him that he would be the first of them to look on this much changed world with yellow cat eyes, to hear the actual cacophony of the keep, to smell the scent of otherness that now clinged to each of them. He was first and he would show them how to deal with it, just like he always had. Except Vesemir insisted.

“The window for safely administering more mutagens is very small.” His mentor crossed his arms, but did not bodily drag Geralt from the room to obey as he might have even a few weeks ago. He was still far from an adult, far from a man, but he reveled in this new modicum of respect he was receiving and so listened to Vesemir’s argument carefully, with all the sage wisdom a ten-year-old could muster. “I explained the Grasses to all of you before you underwent the Trial. The first decoction administered isn’t an actual mutagen at all - it just primes your body for accepting mutagens.”

Geralt nodded. He did remember this lecture. “And then there are three mutagens that are required to be administered to create a witcher. After that you are assessed for whether you can handle more. Most witchers ultimately get four or five, some six.”

“You got six, Geralt, and two days later you are already up and about as if you had experienced nothing more than a bad cold.” 

Geralt did not think that was a fair comparison. He’d been sick before and it had never been a fraction as agonizing as lying on that table feeling the potions boiling through his veins, forcefully rearranging his anatomy and irrevocably mutating him.

“And,” Vesemir continued, “that first decoction is still active in your blood. If we are going to try for more, and they think you can handle more, we have to do so now. Otherwise they will have to readminister the first portion of the Grasses and that would vastly decrease your chances of success. Not many can handle more than six, Geralt. There hasn’t been a Wolf witcher in a hundred years who took to them as well as you did. Although I’ve heard rumours there is one among the Vipers.”

More mutagens meant more strength. More strength meant a better chance at survival on the Path. A better chance at survival on the Path meant he could help more people. And besides, what ten year old doesn’t like to be told they are special? Geralt was loyal to the school that had raised him; he wasn’t going to let them lose to the unscrupulous Vipers. They took out contracts on people! Geralt had already decided that he was never going to kill a human being. He knew that some of the older witchers talked about fighting people sometimes, he wasn’t a naive baby, but if you were stronger and faster and smarter you could disarm your opponent and then you would never need to. More mutagens could only help with that too. So Geralt followed Vesemir.

Eskel woke up a few hours into Geralt’s second set of Trails. His new and improved senses meant he had no problem following Geralt’s scent back to the basement. His new and improved strength however still proved insufficient to get through the door. Neither he nor Geralt ever got a straight answer from anyone on why one of the instructors didn’t simply Axii Eskel and drag him back to bed. Looking back on the twelve hours Eskel spent outside that door trying to claw his way in, the big witcher was mostly embarrassed. It had been a complete exercise in futility since there was absolutely no way he would have ever managed to get in, and furthermore a complete waste of energy that he should have been using to finish healing from his own Trials. The closest Geralt had even come to seeing his oldest friend blush post mutation had been when one of the new younger boys had asked about the gouges in the wood. 

Geralt never told him how much he had appreciated it though, how that scratching had given him something to focus on that wasn’t what was being done to him. How even if it had been futile, the very knowledge that Eskel had stayed there, trying to get to him, had helped him find the strength to endure what should have been unendurable. And besides, given enough time, Geralt honestly believed Eskel would have made it through.

*

Geralt was eighteen when Lambert came to Kaer Morhen. It was not weird that years later, Geralt still remembered this fact clearly. Everyone who was there at the time remembered the day Lambert came to Kaer Morhen; it was somewhat of a production. For one thing, the kid had an unbelievable set of lungs and swore like a Skelligan pirate. For another, he actually got out of Vesemir’s grasp and made a run for it within sight of the walls spawning a small round of betting over whether or not Vesemir would catch him again before he managed to get himself killed on the aptly named trail surrounding the keep, but, to Adon’s financial detriment, the old man did manage to nab the kid and drag him literally kicking and screaming inside.

There had been an unspoken expectation that once he was inside the keep and sequestered within his room for the first night, he would tire himself out and begrudgingly accept his new life. Lambert did not tire himself out and did not seem willing to accept anything about his current predicament. He did, eventually, lose his voice, but he continued his auditory assault on his kidnappers by systematically destroying everything in the room. His cohort-mates were forced to bunk on pallets in the main hall overnight since sending them into the maelstrom of Lambert’s making was out of the question. Voltehre, a boy who had taken a similar unofficial position of leadership amongst his classmates as Geralt had to his, took breakfast up to him in the morning, but returned shortly, frustrated and coated in porridge. He did not try again at lunch and after a quick conference among the instructors the official policy regarding the reluctant new recruit changed to starving him out. He may be stubborn and ill-tempered, but he still had to eat eventually.

It was the afternoon of the fourth day since his tumultuous arrival when Vesemir reluctantly approached Geralt. There were starting to be serious doubts whispered around the keep as to Vesemir’s sanity in bringing Lambert to Kaer Morhen in the first place. He was too old. He was too stubborn. He was too angry. He should have been left at a temple orphanage or sold to a trade school as an apprentice or just outright refused as payment, Law of Surprise and destiny be damned. But Vesemir seemed to think there was still hope for the little brat. He called Geralt aside halfway through the fencing lesson he was half-heartedly teaching. “Can you just try talking to him?”

“Why me?” Since undergoing the mutations and graduating from witcher potential to witcher in training, Geralt had shed the mantle of Kaer Morhen apologist to the new kids. The increased training regimen meant he just didn’t have the time for it, although if he was truly being honest with himself, the fact was he didn't have the heart for it anymore. Vesemir said he was just being eighteen and impossible. Eskel said it was because he already knew enough ten-year-old corpses in the graveyard. Neither were necessarily wrong, but Geralt was embarrassed to admit it might also have something to do with the snickering and snide remarks from the newly graduated witchers, fresh back from their first year in the real world and quick to point out that Geralt had no idea what life on the Path was actually like.

“Because you were always good with the new boys. Don’t give me that look, you were and you know it. Voltehre’s already tried. Dravo’s already tried. I’ve already tried. Barmin’s already tried. It’s either you or he does actually starve himself to death in that damned room.” Without waiting for an answer, Vesemir returned to the rest of his lesson, evidently leaving the fate of the fiery eight year old in Geralt's ill-equipped hands.

With a long suffering sigh, Geralt shed his practice armour and went to his room for a fresh shirt before raiding the stores for some fruit, dried meat and cheese and climbing the stairs on the south side of the keep where the still human potentials slept nestled warm above the kitchen.

The chamberpot thrown at his head when he forced open the door was far too weakly propelled to do any serious damage, easily dodged and, mercifully, empty. Geralt decided not to comment on it as he closed the door behind him and dumped his pilfered bounty on the bed in front of the seething hellion.

Lambert, ingrate that he was, just swore colourfully and snatched up the food to throw at Geralt as well, but was stopped short by a dagger buried lightning quick in the bedspread in front of him. For the first time in possibly ever, Lambert was quiet and still.

“If you want to die that badly, dagger’s a whole lot easier than starving yourself. Save us all a few more days of listening to your little temper tantrum as well.” Geralt crossed his arms and leaned against the closed door.

Tears welled in the kid’s angry brown eyes, but did not fall. He evidently had a lot of practice holding them in. “Asshole! I want to go home. I need to get back to my mother!”

“That’s not happening.” Geralt couldn’t see any reason to sugar coat it. “You have exactly two options here: live and train to be a witcher, or die. Honestly, I don’t particularly give a fuck which one you pick, it’s no skin off my back either way.” Geralt was actually not entirely accustomed to swearing and blustered somewhat to cover his unease. He had not yet worked up the courage to try any actual profanity in front of any of his instructors yet, he had vivid memories of the taste of soap from when he was twelve, but he and a few of his cohort-mates had practiced on each other and damned if he was going to be out cussed by a child. “If you’re undecided and looking for my opinion, personally I would say even this life is better than certain death. Certainly seems better than where you came from.”

Lambert wavered, small hands clenching and unclenching. “I don’t want to be a witcher. I don’t want to be a freak like you!”

“Dagger’s right there then. You’re probably not strong enough to get it through your breastbone and you don’t know enough to get it between your ribs. Go for the throat.”

The kid stubbornly pulled the dagger out of the bed slowly and with considerable effort, obviously under the mistaken impression that he was calling Geralt’s bluff and that at any moment the mutated teenager was going to fly into action and take it away from him.

Geralt stayed firmly planted at the door, though. Even if Lambert had the stones to try anything, and Geralt was starting to begrudgingly admit that he might, the dagger was not actually that sharp. It was the one Geralt kept for throwing practice and it only ever needed to puncture hay bales, so he rarely bothered trying to keep an edge on it. It had taken an inhuman amount of strength even at such a short distance to get the damn thing to puncture the bedspread and would need real force, force Lambert’s tiny and starved body did not possess, to pierce skin.

Lambert did not know that though and held it with all the reverence a real weapon deserved. He seemed to be seriously weighing his options: his resolve to not be a witcher against the impulse to live and fight. He swallowed deeply and his eyes flicked back to meet Geralt’s. A lot of the new boys couldn't stand to meet their instructors' inhuman yellow gaze, it was one of the things Geralt had used to have to reassure them about, but Lambert didn't blink. “You’re not going to try to tell me it’s not that bad? That it’s some sort of stupid honour? That destiny wants me to be a witcher?”

“I’m not going to lie to you.” Geralt held his gaze. “Parts of it are shit. It’s a lot of hard work. No one is going to go easy on you. The Trials are going to kill some of your cohort, likely the majority, maybe even you if you’re not strong enough. But you don't have anywhere else to go now. And it’s not all bad. You get three square meals a day and a better education than just about anyone, save those of noble blood or born with chaos in their veins. You get to be strong. You get to fight. You get to kill monsters, to make a difference in the world.” That was the light at the end of the tunnel, no matter what the older boys said. The thing that made all this worth it. And Geralt was almost there. He didn't use the words knight or hero anymore, not out loud; he wasn't a child or an idiot. But he had not yet truly stopped thinking them - despite everything, that would not fully come until after Blaviken.

“That’s bullshit.” Lambert grumbled petulantly. “If witcher’s killed monsters that old man would have killed my dad instead of saving him.”

The story of how Vesemir had saved Lambert’s father, and the state in which he had found Lambert and his mother when returning the ‘grateful’ man to his family, had been passed around the dinner table in whispers. Geralt couldn't understand why a kid leaving that would not gladly welcome any reprieve from that life with open arms, although he did specify earlier he wanted to get back to his mom in particular. Half of him considered mentioning that, with Lambert gone, she might actually have a better chance at getting away from her husband too. A woman with a kid to worry about couldn’t just pack a bag and run off into the night after all. But that seemed too cruel to say, even for the emotionless machine he was supposed to be now, and besides, even if she stayed for Lambert’s sake it’s not like that made it Lambert’s fault her husband was an abusive asshole. There was no reason to even put the inclination towards that incorrect conclusion in the kid’s head. So Geralt just stayed quiet. 

Lambert stared at the dagger in his hand, white knuckling his grip on it before continuing, louder and angrier. “If I was a witcher, I would have killed him.”

Geralt wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that either. When he was Lambert’s age, he would have argued vehemently that witchers never hurt humans and that they were made to save them. But then again, when he was Lambert’s age he could never have imagined the kind of injustices that humans seemed happy to commit against their fellow humans. Geralt, at eight, had considered Vesemir a cruel and implacable tyrant for five stinging swats with a switch over skipped chores and missed lessons whereas Lambert’s skin was already as scarred as any veteran of the Path. Maybe the current common wisdom about Lambert’s presence at Kaer Morhen being a mistake was correct; maybe it was unreasonable to try to make a witcher out of that.

Finally, feeling that he had to say something, Geralt managed to nod. He might not be able to understand Lambert’s rage, but he could at least acknowledge it, affirm it as righteous if ultimately impotent. He had, after all, promised not to lie. “Because he hurt you.”

Lambert nodded, small jaw set in determination. “And my mom. And so he couldn’t hurt anyone else. Ever.”

Then again, Geralt thought, maybe he could see why Vesemir thought there was a witcher in there after all. He couldn't see how saying that right now would help, though. He didn't know what exactly got some boys through the Grasses while others wilted like poisoned weeds when the decoctions hit their veins, be it strength, determination, fate, or some combination of all three, but whatever it was, Lambert would have to find it if he wanted to hold true to that furious promise. Geralt couldn't give it to him, but, a tiny voice unhelpfully pointed out, he could help him look for it. If he wanted. If Lambert wanted. Or, he firmly reminded himself, he could just do what he came here to do, keep his head down and get himself graduated and out into the world as quickly as possible, so he could show all the nay-sayers what a witcher really was.

It felt like forever before he finally heard the dull thump of the dagger landing at his feet.

“I don’t want to die.”

Geralt let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and turned to leave, mission accomplished. “Then eat.”

“You haven’t won me over, you know! You never will.” Lambert continued to talk through mouthfuls of food. “Not you, not that stupid old man who dragged me here, not anyone! I hate you all! You’re all the same! I’m going to get strong and then I’m going to leave and none of you will be able to stop me! I don’t trust you! I won’t ever trust you! Not in the time it takes the whole castle to crumble into dust! Not in an hundred years!”

“Hmm.” Geralt turned back. Honestly, the kid was probably a lost cause. He was scrawny and weak, underdeveloped physically for his age. He was bad tempered and violent, and there was a not insignificant chance that he might have inherited his father’s proclivities and the instructors would decide that Lambert should have an ‘accident’ before he even got to the Trials; they could never condone giving that kind of power to an unstable sadist. He was argumentative and balked at authority, and was already behind his age group in education, so he would be hard to train and need extra tutoring to catch up. It would be a long, thankless, and potentially fruitless haul, trying to get Lambert into a position where he even reasonably stood a chance at surviving the Trials. Geralt had done what Vesemir had asked and got the little monster to eat something. He didn’t need to offer to teach him to read. He didn’t need to guilt Osbert into giving Lambert modified drills until the three square meals a day they were shovelling into him finally started to show on his emaciated frame. He didn’t need to argue with the elders for Lambert’s life when his short fuse caused the topic of culling him to inevitably be raised. But over the coming days, weeks and years, he would do all of those things and more.

He had a thousand excuses when he was asked why he had done so after the fact - he had liked Lambert’s gumption, he saw the potential in his fiery determination, the kid had already proved he was a survivor and deserved an honest shake, you had to try to help everyone, since that's what witchers do - but in that exact moment, standing in the doorway with the immensity of Lambert’s metaphorical bastions raised between them, all Geralt could actually think of was Eskel and fingernails incrementally carving off sliver by sliver of wood and the difference that knowing that regardless of how long it was going to take or how futile it might seem, nevertheless someone was relentlessly trying to get in. Nevertheless, someone thought you were worth it.

He smiled menacingly at Lambert, showing his fangs and unnerving the poor kid, but Geralt had never learned to gracefully accept a challenge. “You think that will discourage me? You think a hundred years is anything to a witcher? You've got a lot to learn, Lambert. I'll show you. You start tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr ([octinary.tumblr.com](https://octinary.tumblr.com)) if you want to chat!


End file.
